HIRELING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does hireling mean? 

• HIRELING (noun)
  The noun HIRELING has 1 sense:

1. a person who works only for money

  Familiarity information: HIRELING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HIRELING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A person who works only for money

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

hireling; pensionary

Hypernyms ("hireling" is a kind of...):

employee (a worker who is hired to perform a job)

 Context examples 

I did not like to put my hand into a hireling's, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

From Providence to Burgundy we are beset by every prowling hireling in Christendom, who rend and tear the country which you have left too weak to guard her own marches.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I have myself directed some attention, during the past week, to the art of baking; and my son Wilkins has issued forth with a walking-stick and driven cattle, when permitted, by the rugged hirelings who had them in charge, to render any voluntary service in that direction—which I regret to say, for the credit of our nature, was not often; he being generally warned, with imprecations, to desist.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)